Like Drowning
by SasukeBlade
Summary: De Nam, from start to finish. There is too much speculation and not enough facts about the greatest researcher to ever walk the planet.


Notes: This is written in the style of 20 truths. Characterization for De Nam is taken from both Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (which I don't own) and my brain cells (which I do own, I think). Inspiration comes courtesy of Twilight Scribe and ladycordelia17, who have both written stories about De Nam that made me stop and think. Reviews are always appreciated.

-

**Like Drowning**

-

1. There is too much speculation and not enough facts about the greatest researcher to walk the planet. Few ever recognized the worth of his research - in accordance to his Selkie nature, De Nam sought not to rid the world of miasma outright, but to adapt to it in such a way that it would be rendered obsolete.

If he had succeeded, he would have gone down in history as the greatest man who ever lived.

Instead, he lives only in the memories of a few, and only when they think back to the brave Selkie who died for his discoveries.

* * *

2. De Nam was, oddly enough, not born in Leuda _or_ Shella as many assumed. His mother, originally a resident of Alfitaria and round with child, had been on her way to visit her own mother when her water broke. In a panic the ferryman had rushed her to the Fields of Fum, where a middle-aged midwife did her best to aid in the birth.

Namin Ain did not survive the night, but her child, a tiny whelp of a boy, did.

"Name him for his father, Deh Arus," Namin had groaned out sometime during one of the idle questions the midwife had tried to distract her patient with.

Come morning, the lady could not remember the entirety of the chosen name. When the village elder asked, she called him De Nam, for the parents she could not (and he would never) remember.

* * *

3. The midwife was called Nonni, and she ran the village's unofficial orphanage. At the time there was only one other child in her care, a small boy known as Jake.

Despite his obviously Clavat countenance, De Nam always considered him to be his brother by blood, village gossip and opinion be damned.

* * *

4. There was only one other non-Clavat who lived in the Fields of Fum, the Lilty guard Karl Drum. Day after day both boys would visit the worldly man, begging for stories of the places beyond the fences of the outlying fields.

It was here that the researcher first learned of miasma, and here that his brother first thought of joining the caravan.

* * *

5. He was seven when he met _her_.

History lessons at the village school were so boring compared to Karl Drum's tales of the world, but the two boys attended anyway. De Nam paid special attention to the stories of the Selkies. He'd never met another of his tribe after all.

One such day, as the old schoolmaster, Frederick, reviewed the building of the Veo Lu Sluice, a timid knock sounded at the door.

The girl behind it took the boy's breath away. Her hair was dark, so dark it appeared almost blue in the sunlight streaming into the musty room. It framed her wide, open face. Narrow brown eyes darted around the room, and the lone Selkie thought he'd never seen anything as beautiful as this lanky freckle-faced girl.

Old Frederick asked her to introduce herself, to which she blushed and stammered out a reply. Had he not sat in the front row of that tiny schoolhouse, De Nam might have missed it.

"I-I'm Lulie," she had said. He had smiled then; the angel had a name.

* * *

6. The caravan came recruiting before he could turn of age. Jake on the other hand, already sixteen cycles and strong from summers spent in the local fields, was exactly what they were looking for.

"I'll write you every chance I get," Jake promised, eyes large with sincerity. "I won't forget you."

De Nam tried to smile, and failed. "Of course you will," he said, even though he knew it was a lie.

When the young man finally left, casting one last entreating gaze back at his brother, De Nam had to turn away from Nonni's knowing eyes.

"That wasn't very nice of you," the midwife said.

"Oh?" the Selkie asked, hating how his pale skin would not tan in the autumn sun and the way he remained slender despite his labors. "I hadn't noticed."

* * *

7. Archimedes the alchemist always wore black robes, though the graybeard often complained of the heat.

It took three experiments gone wrong for the Selkie genius to figure out why.

Black robes don't stain. White summer garments, on the other hand, do.

* * *

8. Speculation also holds that De Nam was disliked, if not hated, by the majority of the village.

This is, of course, untrue. While many honestly did not care about the boy, this apathy was not born out of any annoyance or irritation. De Nam simply held no influence in their lives.

Those who did care, on the other hand, regarded the Selkie fondly. With one bat of those long silver lashes, the boy had plenty of feminine hearts thumping in the palm of his hand.

"He's a charmer," Nonni would say, wrinkles deepening from laughter.

"He's a sweetheart," Lulie could be heard admitting to some of the other village girls, who would all titter with excitement at the announcement.

"He's a heartbreaker," the baker's wife would say, but there was always a tiny upturning at the corners of her mouth to belie the rolling pin she brandished at the mention of him.

Most of the men generally took no sides on this topic, especially if the women were around.

* * *

9. Were it not for a particular chance meeting one winter, De Nam might never have left the Fields of Fum.

Under specific invitation from the village elders Amidatty the Eccentric had stopped by with the rest of his caravan in order to attend the winter festival. Having grown drowsy under the warmth and comfort of the inn's traditional holiday brew, he had stepped out for some fresh air.

There were so many things for the caravan leader to ponder. He led a double, even a triple life. In one he was a researcher, another a leader of his people, another a husband and father. A true trinity, with no even or simple edges, one he sought to balance each and every day. It had only grown more difficult.

In the end there were too many questions and too few answers. He needed to recruit a new person for the caravan to replace Yanderivee, he needed to find someone to carry on his various projects while he was away, he needed to convince his wife to stay with him one more year, at least until he figured this all out. He needed to rid the world of miasma, he needed to keep his village safe, he needed, he needed.

Lost in such thoughts, it was pure chance that he happened upon the scene the moment he did.

Sudden shouting from within one of the more ramshackle buildings drew the Yuke's attention and, startled, he could not help but stare. An ancient Clavat, his beard nearly to his waist, stumbled out the door, only to whip around to snag something behind him. With a yelp, the boy he had grabbed skidded out the door, sending both tumbling down the stoop into the snow.

The boy, rather strange looking, leaped to his feet and tried to lunge back through the door, only to trip right back into the snow as the man yanked at his robes.

"What do ye think you're doing? The experiment's a failure, she's going to blow!"

Once again the boy tried to struggle to his feet, and it suddenly occurred to the pole-axed Yuke that the reason he looked so strange for a Clavat was because he was not a Clavat at all. The _Selkie_ scrambled to his feet once again, pure determination stamped on his features.

"I need to see it happen if I'm to know what to fix for next time! Variables, Archie. Results!"

Amidatty had almost laughed. There was one problem solved.

* * *

10. "How would you like to study with some of the most prestigious scholars in the world?" the Yuke would later ask, to be met with the surprisingly direct eyes of the Selkie boy (so very, very few tried to meet the eyes behind the visor.)

"I would like that very much, sir. However, I don't have much money or experience." Even the honesty was refreshing, and Amidatty thought that maybe this was no accident. Maybe he was meant to be in the Fields of Fum on that snowy night, to meet this boy.

But the scientist had never been a great believer in fate. It was far more scientifically viable that in this case, opposites really did attract.

* * *

11. De Nam would never cease to amaze Amidatty the Eccentric. This is perhaps the crowning achievement of his life.

* * *

12. They visited him once during his tenure in Shella, sometime after the Fields of Fum caravan had recruited yet again.

He was happy here, in the heart of knowledge. Happy enough to make amends with his brother by promise. Happy enough to kiss the girl.

His evident joy made her smile, and Lulie kissed him back. Several times, of course. Under various lighting and temperature conditions, with other manipulated factors taken into account such as publicity, timing, and technique. His controlled factor, was, of course, his participant.

At the end of that particular experiment, De Nam had come to the conclusion he'd hypothesized so many years ago in that one room schoolhouse. He was _made_ to kiss this girl.

* * *

13. Simplicity defined his masterpiece experiment.

"You'll never be able to pull this off," Amidatty warned his student in passing. By then all of Shella had heard of the crazed Selkie researcher. "It is too quick of a killer."

"But haven't studies shown that caravanners often display a greater resistance to the effects of the miasma?" he had countered. "Small, increasing doses over a long period of time. Not enough to kill or cause disease, but enough to force adaptation."

Shella's caravan leader shook his helmeted head. "It would take a man sixty cycles to adapt to such a instantaneous killing airborne poison."

"So be it." He did it in three.

* * *

14. Breathing miasma was painful, to the point where after the first month he began to cough blood after his trials.

His bandanna wasn't red to begin with.

"_It's not so bad,"_ he reassured Nonni in one of his letters. _"Like drowning, but without the dying."_

* * *

15. De Nam was raised first by the Clavats and then by the Yukes. He had never known anything of his own tribe.

Conall Curach was chosen less for its miasma concentration than its symbolism. Where his people reached and failed, he would succeed. He would be better. He would redeem them, somehow.

He was always a Selkie, even when they tried to pretend he wasn't.

* * *

16. _"It's for you," _he tried to explain once in one of his many correspondences with her, ignoring the way his penmanship had devolved since the miasma has started to make his hands tremble constantly. _"Can't you see that it was always for you?"_

* * *

17. By the time he tried to write his next reply, it was not his handwriting that deterred him, but the fact that he could not remember the words he wanted to say, or the way the characters formed them on the paper.

* * *

18. He awoke one morning to find that, having finally reached the point where he could spend long periods of time outside the crystal's circle, the pain was gone.

For the first time in years he breathed easily, finally free of the constant, sharp agony of his lungs laboring under the strain of miasma. He had done it. He had accomplished what no one thought possible.

In that moment, the Selkie was not ashamed to find tears streaming down his face.

* * *

19. As an intellectual, he could appreciate the irony of the situation.

The miasma didn't take him after all, not in the way the Yukes of Shella and the elders of the Fields of Fum had speculated.

The monsters, however, did. And so the miasma's other children came to collect on this particular creation.

He fought, but what more could one want from him? He was a scientist, not a soldier.

* * *

20. The most widely held truths about De Nam are these: he had gone beyond what rules mortality had defined for him, he had made a name for himself, and he had proved to the world that there was more to this life than hiding in the crystals' shadows.

The lesser held truths about De Nam are these: he had breathed the miasma and not been harmed, he had begun a legend, and he had loved only one woman, and had done so for most of his life and with all of his heart.

The undeniable facts about De Nam are these: he had lived, he had died, and beneath the constant, undying blue skies of the realm of the Lady Mio, he had finally rested in peace.

* * *

**The End**


End file.
